The Jakarta Post | Widening Women’s Access to Financial Services

October 14, 2018, JAKARTA – An important editorial on widening women’s access to financial services by Taimur Baig, Chief Economist of DBS Bank and member of Women’s World Banking’s Southeast Advisory Council, has been published in a special IMF edition of The Jakarta Post.

The 2016 Financial Inclusion Survey, carried out by the Financial Service Authority (OJK), was characterized by some sobering results. It found that both in terms of financial literacy and financial inclusion, Indonesia had a long way to go. Both the Indonesia-oriented OJK survey and comprehensive global data from the Financial Inclusion Insights (FII) initiative show a steady improvement in both metrics in recent years, but the gap with the rest of the world, even within the developing economy cohort, is considerable.

The FII survey shows that only about a quarter of Indonesia’s population could be considered possessing access to formal financial services.